BÁO CÁO KHOA HỌC: "Nghiên cứu bước đầu các cây thuốc chữa ung thư ở Việt Nam " doc

With the large number of ethnic minority, Vietnam is endowed with vast resources of medicinal plants and the plant may provide lead compounds for the future anticancer therapy.. The rese

Nghiên cứu bước đầu các cây thuốc chữa ung thư ở Việt Nam

Từ thời tiền sử con người đã biết sử dụng cây cỏ phục vụ cuộc sống, 150.000 trong số 250,000 – 300.000 loài thực vật có hoa ở vùng nhiệt đới đã được sử dụng làm thuốc Gần 5 % số cây thuốc đã được nghiên cứu thành phần hóa học ở Việt Nam đã có 3870 loài trong số 11.373 loài cây

có hoa, được sử dụng làm thuốc Để phục vụ cho vấn đề chữa trị bệnh ung thư các tác giả bước đầu đã thu được kết quả như sau:

1 Số lượng các loài có khả năng chữa trị bệnh ung thư: 50

loài thuộc 36 chi và 24 họ Trong số đó, họ Zingiberaceae

là đa dạng nhất (16%), tiếp theo là Myrsinaceae và

Annonaceae (10%)

2 Dạng cây thường là cây gỗ và cây thảo (34%), dây leo chỉ chiếm 6%

3 Chúng chủ yếu sống trong rừng (38%), 10% được bắt gặp ở vùng núi đá vôi Trong đó, 36% tổng số loài đã được nhân dân thuần hóa và trồng trong vườn nhà

Như vậy, trong thiên nhiên, những nguồn tài nguyên về cây thuốc là khá phong phú và cần được quan tâm ở đây,

chúng tôi chỉ mới bước đầu điều tra sơ lược về các cây có khả năng chưa trị bệnh ung thư, căn bệnh mà cả thế giới hiện nay đang quan tâm

Note: This paper is completed under the support by the programme of resaerch of Vietnam National University

Người thẩm định nội dung khoa học: GS.TSKH Nguyễn Văn Trương, Viện trưởng Viện Kinh tế – Sinh thái

INTRODUCTION

Using Plant as drugs has been a goal of mankind since

prehistoric times Most of drugs in use today have their

origin from plants used by healers since time immemorial

It is estimated that there are about 250,000 – 300,000

species of flowering plant on this planet of which 150,000 are found in the tropical forests (Prance, 1977) Less than 5% of these plants have been so far investigated for

pharmacologically active compounds Higher plants are untapped reservoirs, only waiting to be investigated For many classes of drugs widely employed in humans,

synthesis of novel structures has not yielded entities with new mechanism of action

Plants have been used in the treatment of cancer for over 3,500 years (Hartwell, 1967), but it is only since 1959 that

a concerted systematic effort has been made to screen crude plant extracts for their inhibitory activity against animal tumor systems About 11,373 plant species are present

throughout the forests, hills, plains, crop fields, marshy

lands of Vietnam, of which 3870 species reported to be used in traditional medicines for the health care of the

millions of people of this country (Do Huy Bich et al

2004)

For long time minority people in Vietnam have been

effectively using traditional medicinal plants They are

sometimes used as sources of direct therapeutic agents

With the large number of ethnic minority, Vietnam is

endowed with vast resources of medicinal plants and the plant may provide lead compounds for the future anticancer therapy Some of them have been studied and details

recorded and some are industrial produced and sold When Western medicines became more popular, the traditional medicinal plants were less used Beside, modern medicine

is limited and the high cost of many modern drugs means that traditional medicine is the first choice in the case of having cancer as well as other illness

OBJECT AND METHODS

This paper sheds light on the anticancer plants used in the popular herbal remedies With this objective, 50 different anti-cancer plant species were collected They are

suggested for using as sources of starting point for the

elaboration of more complex semi-synthetic compounds The research was carried out in the hope of finding out some new potential plants for modern medicine used in the treatment of cancer

The local people were interviewed to obtain certain details and the specimens were identified and arranged according

to the system of Brummitt, 1992

- Systematic evaluation of traditional medicinal plants

collected and investigated

- From the list of plants some species are suggested for analysis and treatment

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Table 1: The list of the families of anti-cancer plant

There are 50 anti-cancer plants of 36 genera of 24 families

collected Taxa of medicinal plants are completely diverse

and they are distributed differently in different families

The most diverse is Zingiberaceae (16%) and the next are

Myrsinaceae and Annonaceae (10%) The greatest numbers

of species are in the genera of Ardisia (5 species) and the

next is Annona and Curcuma (4 species)

Diversity of life-forms of anti-cancer plants

The life-form of all the plant reported are shown in the

table 2 below:

Table 2: Life–form of medicinal species

The anti-cancer plants used as herbs and trees are the most

common (34%), shrubs (26%), and lianas (6%)

Distribution

The distribution of anti-cancer plants in different habitats is shown in table 3 The distribution of wild anti-cancer plants are mainly in forest (38%) and then are cultivated plants by local people (36%)

Table 3: Distribution of anti-cancer plants in different

habitats

Some thinhking and suggestion about pharmaceutical

research and use: The above data are results of servey from

experiences of the people and on the field and they are

systematically gathered These data are a basis for analysis

on biochemistry, assessement on pharmacology and use in

cure for cancer in the future

CONCLUSIONS

There are 50 anti-cancer plants of 36 genera of 24 families collected Taxa of medicinal plants are completely diverse and they are distributed differently in different families

The most diverse is Zingiberaceae (16%) and the next are Myrsinaceae and Annonaceae (10%)

Life-form of anti-cancer plants consisted 34% of herb, 34%

of tree, 26% of shrub and 6% of liana

The distribution of anti-cancer plants are mainly in forest (38%) 36% of them are cultivated by local people

LITERATURE SOURCE

1 Do Huy Bich et al 2004 Plants and animals used as medicine in Vietnam Sci-Techn Publ House, Hanoi Vol 1&2

2 Vo Van Chi 1997 Dictionary of medicinal plants of Vietnam Med Publ House, Hanoi 3 Vo Van Chi, Tran

Hop 2002 Useful plants in Vietnam, Ha Noi

4 Pham Hoang Ho 1999-2000 Plants of Vietnam Vol 1,2&3, Young Publisher, Hanoi

5 Phung Ngoc Lan, Nguyen Nghia Thin, Nguyen Ba Thu 1996 Plant diversity in Cuc Phuong Agr Publ

House, Hanoi

6 Đo Tat Loi 2001 Medicinal plants and drugs of

Vietnam Sci-Techn Publ House, Hanoi

7 Nguyen Nghia Thin 2001 Medicinal plants of Thai minority of Con Cuong, Nghe An

8 Olayiwola Akerele, Vernon Heywood & Hugh Synge,

1991 Conservation of medicinal plant Cambridge

university press

9 Jounal of tropical medicinal plants, 2001 Vol.1

(1&2), 148pp

10 Jounal of tropical medicinal plants, 2000 Vol.2 (1), 154pp